U.S. Sending an F.B.I. Team to Investigate Bombing in Pakistan

By DAVID JOHNSTON

Published: November 23, 1995

WASHINGTON, Nov. 22—
F.B.I. agents have been sent to Pakistan to search for possible links between a deadly bombing at the Egyptian Embassy there on Sunday and a car bomb that killed five Americans 10 days ago in Saudi Arabia, law enforcement officials said today.

The investigation has not yet yielded any direct connection between the two bombings, but the Federal Bureau of Investigation is exploring whether the attacks were carried out by the same or allied Islamic militant groups, which have denounced the American and Egyptian Governments.

Several Islamic militant organizations have taken responsibility for the bombings, but the authorities said they did not yet know whether any of the assertions were valid. Some officials have also suggested that Iran or Iraq might have been responsible, but so far no evidence has surfaced to connect them to the attacks.

Today, the Pakistani authorities arrested two Egyptian men near the Afghanistan border as suspects in the attack in Islamabad on Sunday, when a suicide bomber slammed a pickup truck loaded with explosives into the gate of the Egyptian Embassy. The blast killed 15 people and wounded about 60.

Because no Americans were killed or wounded, the decision to send F.B.I. agents to Islamabad is somewhat unusual because there was no apparent violation of United States law involved in Sunday's attack. Instead, the decision appeared to reflect efforts by the Federal authorities to explore any possible lead in terrorism cases.

At the same time, the F.B.I. team in Saudi Arabia appears to be making slow headway in its investigation of the bombing of an American-run military training center in Riyadh on Nov. 13. Law enforcement officials said initial tests had showed that the bomb left traces of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil, a highly combustible mix that was detonated by anunknown type of timing device.

The authorities are also raising their estimate of the power of the bomb, saying it probably contained thousands of pounds of explosives. Originally, military officials said the bomb contained 150 to 200 pounds of high explosives packed inside a van.

Still, the officials said they had not yet determined the exact size or chemical composition of the bomb, which also wounded dozens of other Americans. They said it is possible that high explosives could have been used in combination with ammonium nitrate or other chemicals to produce the huge explosion.

In addition to the logistical difficulties of operating in a foreign country, investigators have encountered a crime scene that had not been carefully isolated and have been frustrated by their inability to find critical evidence, like the vehicle identification number from the van used to carry the bomb.

The American team has also confronted diplomatic obstacles, officials said. At one point, Saudi security officials balked when F.B.I. agents wanted to bring bomb debris back to the United States for analysis. The problem was resolved when the two Governments agreed that Saudi representatives would accompany any rubble removed from the kingdom for investigation.

Precisely identifying the bomb's components may help investigators find who may be responsible.

The United States Embassy in Riyadh today offered a $2 million reward for information on the people behind the bombing, in addition to the $800,000 reward that had been announced by the Saudi Government, The Associated Press reported from Riyadh.